Green Day Band • Page 56

Listened to 21CB this morning. Forgot how much I like ¡Viva La Gloria! and Murder City.

 

I think I'll listen to 21st CB today. I don't think I've ever been as hyped for an album as 14 year old me was for the follow up to American Idiot

 

Here's my order.

American Idiot
Warning
Dookie
Insomniac
21st CB
Revolution Radio
Kerplunk
Nimrod
Uno/Dos/Tre (these 3 are linked as 1 for me)
1039/Smooth Slappy

I think Uno/Dos/Tre are super underrated but not enough for me to move them higher.

I'm sure I like Nimrod a lot less than most, I just think it's super hit and miss.

 

Also - Warning is SO GOOD

I'd love to see the new album be in the Warning style or similar

 

Warning is their best record.

 

Almost every major band hits that point in their career where they are just no longer as big and important and revered. There is usually an album that marks that turning point. I'd compare Green Day with a band like REM, where people will always talk about their career as being like before/after New Adventures in Hi-Fi. For Green Day that's 21CBD. The album that is still good but at the same time marks essentially a point of no return, from where the band will forevermore be considered past its prime.

 

It’s funny because after “Warning” underperformed, they were considered possibly past their prime. Then, of course, “American Idiot” happened.

 

Yeah I was super worried they were done and I'd only just gotten tight into them. So American Idiot blew my mind even just in the fact they were back. I think that two decades on we can acknowledge warning was by no means a low point in the band's career.

 

I still kind of can't believe what they pulled off with American Idiot. A huge departure/maturation for them, after a commercial slump, and they somehow turned a rock opera into a phenomenon that spawned four ubiquitous pop hits. Could not possibly happen today, for them or any comparable band.

 

I wouldn’t say it’s a point where bands are no longer big or past their prime. They eventually hit a ceiling, bands can only get so big. And then that popularity just stays at that level. They’re not getting any bigger but they’re also not losing any fans.

I see Linking Park as another example. Hybrid Theory and Meteora were clearly their peak years for the band, but over the next 13 years, 4 of their next 5 albums still debuted at number 1. They were still having huge, successful tours all over the world, but they hadn’t had a major hit probably since “What I’ve Done” in 2007.

I’d say Green Day definitely hit that point with American Idiot. They already had that huge “takeover the world” type of success once with Dookie. Most bands who experience that type success only hit once in their career. They did again with American Idiot, and that’s where they really solidified their place in music history.

 

Agreed. Anyone "too cool" to acknowledge the importance of that album is willfully ignorant.
And the first time

Yeah I agree, bands that big can continue to succeed for sure. Sold-out arena tours etc. I guess there is always just that line where they step over it and basically become legacy acts. Most of the people in those arenas just want to hear the hits up to American Idiot and a lot wouldn't even have heard Revolution Radio. The new work, no matter how good, just won't have the reach anymore. And that's fine, like you said Green Day had that major, top-of-the-world success twice which is absurdly great. I love them. Love them. But I can acknowledge they will never again be considered in the prime of their recording careers.

 

They've been going strong for 30 years now without any breakups or even lineup changes, and still sell out arenas every tour and have fans ranging from like 10-60. I'd say most bands would kill to be in the position they're in

 

I also think it's impressive that Green Day have only made 1 truly bad album (Dos) and at least it's so bad that it's interesting

 

Even with Dos probably being their worst album, it still has some fantastic songs on it.

 

I love Dos the most out of the 3. It’s a fun record and they’ve said it’s really the second Foxboro Hot Tubs record, just under the Green Day name.

 

Yeah it's actually a good record so

 

Dos might be better than Uno, actually. It has a few true blue classics (I don't think Uno has any) and it's at least fascinating in all the ways it fails (whereas Uno is mostly just boring).

 

What?! Uno's first four/five songs are true blue classics imo. Nuclear Family, Stay the Night, Carpe Diem, Let Yourself Go and even Kill The DJ are top tier tracks in my book. To me Dos has a few classics as well, Wild One, Lazy Bones and especially Stray Heart.

 

True classics from Uno, Dos, Tre:
Stay the Night
Lazy Bones
Stray Heart
Brutal Love

Very good songs from Uno, Dos, Tre:
Almost all of Uno and Tre

Not good songs from Uno, Dos, Tre:
Most of Dos

 

I don’t think there’s any song anywhere on the trilogy that should be considered a classic.

 

I will die on this hill. Over and over again.

 

The Trilogy is saved by the Star Wars prequels already laying claim to "worst trilogy of all time."

 

All of those Uno songs are just okay to me. They all kind of sound the same. The hooks aren't distinct enough. They're blandly produced. It's just a pretty boring album for me start-to-finish, whereas the other two have a little more to offer. (Also think "Let Yourself Go" and "Kill the DJ" are both pretty bad songs.) "Stray Heart" and "Lazy Bones" are both better than anything on Uno. I also love "Amy" and think "See You Night" works really well as an intro track, ideally flowing into "X-Kid" for the one-album compilation of these three records.

"Brutal Love" is the best song from the trilogy for me, and one of Billie's best-ever vocal performances.

 

Dos has the worst Green Day song of all time in Nightlife

 

It seems dumb but if the trilogy was one big triple album it'd be better, like a hand with nothing to prove trying whatever they want and leaving very little on the editing table. An interesting experiment if nothing much more. But spreading it across three albums in quick succession just made it seem like one half-baked record after another. The fatigue and apathy set in pretty quickly.